Instead of constantly washing dishes manually, many of us have the luxury of using a mechanical dishwasher to do the dirty work.
Josephine Cochran invented the first practical and successful dishwasher. She was sick and tired of her servants chipping her fine china (pic-related) through the hand-washing method. Though, Josephine Cochrane is not the first person to get her dishwasher patented; Joel Houghton patented his dishwashing machine in 1850, a wooden, hand-cranked device that didn’t do the job very well. With no mechanical background, Cochran first measured her dishes, made wire sections, and made each section fit to bowls, plates and so forth. These wire sections were set into a wheel within a copper boiler. The motor turned this wheel, and warm, sudsy water sprayed from the copper boiler, coating the dishes. Cochran showed off her dishwasher to the public in 1893 at the World’s Fair. Her lovely invention was a hit in commercial applications for hotels and restaurants. Get this, she even found a company to manufacture for her dishwashers... today’s KitchenAid®. It wasn’t until the 1950s, the general public caught onto the idea of using a dishwasher in their home as a standard kitchen appliance. Pretty cool, huh? All we have to say is, thank you Josephine Cochran, thank you.
Photo by: Harshit Sekhon
